Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
by Ninazadzia
Summary: Peter/Tris. T for sex. Fact: I've had my memory erased. I used to live in Amity, and my name was Aimee Finicky. Fact: I was in love with a boy named Sutter Keely. Fact: I know Sutter now, and he's not Sutter anymore. He's Peter Hayes. Fact: I'm falling for him all over again. And I hate myself for it.
1. Tobias and Tris

**A/N: This fic is set four years after end of the war, and both Tris and Tobias have survived. They're currently living together in Chicago.**

* * *

**Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind**

By Ninazadzia

"_How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!_

_The world forgetting, by the world forgot._

_Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!_

_Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd"_

**-Alexander Pope**

* * *

The day I learned about Aimee Finicky started uneventfully. I was scrambling around the apartment looking for my hairbrush, while Tobias watched idly as he drank his cup of coffee. Typical.

"You know," he called from the other room, flipping the page of his newspaper. "You could just leave it in the same place. Then you'd never _lose it."_

I rolled my eyes. "You know how I am!" I hollered. I looked onto our nightstand, and—lo and behold—my purple hairbrush was there. Jackpot. "I can't keep track of our friends' birthdays, much less my own shit." I ran into the kitchen, where Tobias was eating.

"Which reminds me," he said, clearing his throat. "Peter Hayes' birthday is next week. We were invited to celebrate with him. Strictly courtesy, you know—probably your brother's doing."

"Well, Caleb needs to stop spending so much time with that asshole," I muttered. I walked over, and plucked the newspaper out of his hands. "What are you, a forty year old man?"

He laughed. He's been doing a lot of that since the war ended. "So are we going?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I don't think he wants_ or_ expects us to." I ran the brush through my hair a few times, and stopped to look in the mirror. _Good enough, _I figured. "Besides, what are we supposed to do—rub elbows and pretend like we don't dislike him?"

He nodded. "Right."

To everyone's surprise, Peter had stayed in Chicago after the war. He checked himself into self-improvement therapy, after Tobias had refused to give him the memory serum. "I want the serum because I'm sick of being this way, I'm sick of doing bad things and liking it and then wondering what's wrong with me. I want it to be over. I want to start again."

That's what Peter had said, word for word. But instead, Tobias shoved it down Marcus' throat, and made a point of calling Peter a coward. "If you were really brave, you wouldn't run from who you are. You wouldn't try to forget. You'd _change. _So man up, and find a reason to change." That was four years ago, and to say that he's changed is a definite understatement. But that doesn't mean I'll forget the time he almost killed me—I still don't like him.

I planted a kiss on Tobias' lips and turned on my heel. I grabbed my bag from the sofa. "I'm heading out!" I called over my shoulder.

"I can see that."

"Love you too!" I shouted, just as the door shut behind me.

* * *

It's thankfully only a few blocks from mine and Tobias' apartment to the self-defense clinic that I worked at. I sprinted down a few flights of stairs, and reached the lobby of our apartment building. I was about to make a beeline for the door, but I checked my watch first. _8:53_. _Relax a little, you have some time_.

I fished around my bag until I grasped the cold, metallic key to our mailbox. I was waiting on a wedding invitation from Susan. Her and Jacob, her beau, had been engaged for a few months, and I couldn't see them holding off for much longer. Unfortunately.

To be perfectly honest, Susan and I weren't the closest of friends—but we had a childhood bond, and those bonds need to be honored. And besides Caleb, she was the one person left in my life that I'd grown up with. So, yeah, we kept in touch, we made small talk, and we were even close enough that when she'd gotten enganged I could tell her (without overstepping my boundaries), "Susan, you're only twenty—don't you think you're too young to be getting married?"

"Not if it's true love," she'd replied, wistfully.

_Not if it's true love._ I couldn't tell if that statement was sappy or endearing.

I put the key inside of the mailbox. It swung open. Sure enough, a big, white envelope with the return address from "Susan Black and Jacob Weiss" was present, along with a few spam letter from the cable and cell phone companies, and a big, manila envelope.

As I walked to work, I unceremoniously tore open Susan's wedding invitation. _Saturday, the fifth of June_ . . . I racked my brain, and realized that that was only two months away. That meant one of two things: a) she was throwing a minimalist, Abnegation style wedding that didn't require a lot of planning, or b) she was pregnant.

_Definitely the former, _I decided. Susan was a "save yourself" kind of person— she'd given me one hell of a lecture when I told her Tobias and I were living together (well, as much of a lecture as you can give, when you're Susan Black), and I'd had to explain to her that I'm a) an adult, and b) in a committed relationship.

Tobias and I have been living together for the last two years, and it doesn't look like that's going to end anytime soon. After the war, it didn't take too long for my fear of sexual intimacy to go away. Kissing became fondling, fondling became touching, and touching became sex. It was a natural progression, and it was with someone I trusted—what was there to be afraid of?

I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head, the one that went, _he's the only person you've ever been with. It's been five years. You're tired of this. Don't pretend like you aren't._ Ignoring it wasn't that hard, because I didn't exactly believe it.

Besides—no one understood me like Tobias did.

I reached the clinic, said some "good mornings," and walked right into my office. Christina worked the later shifts, so she'd be in around noon. We founded a self-defense clinic (together) after the war; it was my idea, but she did most of the planning. Our goal was simple—we wanted to train and educate young women in the event that they were attacked. We worked with other former members of Dauntless, and we had roughly two-hundred clients in and out of the clinic every week. To say that our business had grown substantially over the course of the last four years was a big understatement.

We didn't open our doors until 9:30, so I went right into my office. I sat down, propped my legs up against my desk, and sipped from the coffee I'd made this morning. I flipped through the remaining mail in my hands, and finally stopped at the manila evelope.

_Hmm,_ I thought. The return address was from 'Mary Siervo.' I racked my brain, and tried to remember if it was someone that I knew from Abnegation, but came up short. I tore open, and my eyes landed upon the letter.

To all patients of Dr. Howard Mierzwiak,

My name is Mary Siervo. We've met, but you don't remember me. I worked for a company you hired to have your memory erased. You've erased your one-year relationship with Sutter Keely, as well as the fifteen years you spent in the Amity faction, from your memory.

If would like to receive a tape of your testimonial, as well as any additional information, please visit me at the following location: 166 East Knowles Way.

Thank you.

It read it two, three, four more times, and finally came to one resounding conclusion: bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Yeah, my notoriety had died down since the end of the war, but I was still something of a public figure—some kid had probably sent this to me, thinking it would be funny to play a joke on Tris Prior. It wouldn't be the first time; I've gotten prank calls and mail before, so why should this be any different?

But then I turned the page, and my breath hitched. Attached was _my photo, _except it didn't look like me. The girl had her hair in curls. She wore a yellow dress, pink blush, and she had fluttery eyelashes. She was younger (_much _younger than I was now), and she looked gentler. Sweeter. More innocent.

But it wasn't the photo that convinced me. The description below it did.

Name: Aimee Finicky.

Date of Birth: February 12th, 2273

Height: 5'4"

Weight: 102 pounds

While the name and picture plastered across the top of the page were foreign to me, all of the medical info matched. Everything—my birthday, my height, my weight, even my food allergies—matched. So I knew what my next course of action was. I didn't hesitate; I grabbed my bag, and walked right out of my office. I knocked on the door next to mine, where my intern Leanne worked.

"Morning, Tris," she said, barely looking up from her computer.

"I'm leaving now." She looked up and opened her mouth to say something. "I need a personal day." I said it quickly and sternly. Before she could reply, I turned on my heel, and marched out of the clinic. I didn't even pause to put on my coat as I stepped into the blustery March air—I just kept walking. It didn't take me long to hail a cab.

"Where to, ma'am?" the driver asked.

"166 East Knowles," I said.

He turned just slightly. "That'll cost you. That's in Amity."

"Yeah. I know." I leaned back into my seat, and tried to ignore how much my heart was pounding. "Just drive."

* * *

**A/N: I'm **_**hoping **_**that this will be somewhere around 5 or 6 chapters, but that's wishful thinking on my part. I'm more than 99 percent sure that this going to become a monstrosity—so if you want me to continue this, please please please please please take a minute to leave a review and let me know what you thought.**

**The first two chapters are going to introduce the plot and give us some background on who Aimee Finicky and Sutter Keely are. (If you've ever seen **_**The Spectacular Now,**_** then it's the same Aimee and Sutter we've come to know and love.) If you **_**haven't **_**seen Spectacular Now, don't worry, you won't be lost or anything.**

**I also borrow some elements from the film **_**Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind**_**. Again, you don't need to see that movie in order to understand what's going on, I just loosely borrow some plot points from it.**

**Aaaaaaanyway, thank you sososososo much for reading this chapter! Let me know what you thought :D**

**xx Nina**


	2. Aimee Finicky

**Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind**

By Ninazadzia

* * *

"_How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!_

_The world forgetting, by the world forgot._

_Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!_

_Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd"_

**-Alexander Pope**

* * *

The first words that came out of her mouth were, "I was hoping you'd come see me."

Mary Siervo was a thin, pale woman in her late twenties. She had delicate features and a warm, open smile. I couldn't deny the chill that went up my spine as I shook her hand, stepped inside, and walked into her house. I'd had a past, she was a part of it—and I didn't remember _anything_.

"Is there anything I can get you?" she asked. "Water, tea?"

"I'm good, thanks."

She led me into her kitchen, and sat me down at her table. Her apartment was cluttered with boxes upon boxes, each of them labeled _Lacuna and Co._

I cleared my throat. "So, I'm here to—"

"Learn about your past?" She finished. She leaned over her counter, and steeped a teabag into a cup of boiling water. "Listen to your confessional?" She pulled up a chair, and sat across from me at the table. "Don't worry, Aimee, I remember you, I can get you all fixed up—you go by Tris nowadays, right?"

"Yeah," I replied, my throat suddenly scratchy, "Tris Prior."

"Okay, then, Tris." She kicked back in her chair. "Before you ask anything, and before I tell you anything about your past, specifically, I'm going to cover the bare basics of your procedure—does that sound fair?"

"Did you use memory serum?"

She laughed, but in a way that was more amused than anything else. "You really are a rebel, huh?" She reached into the box below, and pulled out a file—a file labeled 'Aimee Finicky.' "Yes, we used a memory serum, but let's not jump the gun here. When you think of the memory serum, you think 'Abnegation,' right?"

I shrugged. "I guess."

"Well, it's true that we use Abnegation's product—but our procedure is completely independent of Abnegation's interests."

"So whose interests are you serving, then?" I asked.

"Again, jumping the gun—don't you want to know what the procedure is?" Again, I shrugged. "Well, it's different from what the serum is typically used for, which is to 'put down' convicts and dangerous government officials without actually _killing _them. As you know, Amity _is _the peaceful faction, and we try to uphold the peace no matter the cost—"

"By drugging people," I said, smirking. "Yeah, I know. I've been in Amity before, I know how it works—or, well, used to—over there. But why are you giving me a lesson about factions? The system fell close to five years ago."

"Because the serum was deployed for _both _the interests of the client _and_ for the interests of the Amity faction as a whole." She stood up, and poured herself another cup of boiling water. "How hypocritical would it be if we executed troublemakers, right? We're not Erudite. When we have a problem with someone in our faction—when someone is disturbing the peace—well, the serum was the method we used in order to eradicate them." She took a long, deep sip from her tea. "Erase someone's memories . . . erase who they are . . . you erase the problem."

"Oh, so I was a problem, then?" I asked, raising a brow.

"Again, _jumping the gun._" She wagged a finger in my direction. "It wasn't you as much as it was your boyfriend, Sutter. But before we get to that, understand that the procedure is entirely voluntarily—you, or at least _Aimee Finicky, _chose to have your memories erased. The faction can 'suggest' that certain troublemakers go under the procedure, but that wasn't the case with you. You believed it was your best choice of action."

I stared at her, bewildered. _What in God's name—_I must've been incredibly far removed from whoever I was when I was "Aimee," because I would never, _ever _elect to have my own brain tampered with. That was a coward's choice.

"So, to walk you through the procedure, we request that our clients fill out a full contract. This would be _yours—"_ she pulled out a yellowed, bent sheet of paper, "and it states the date of the procedure, and your full agreement to partake in such an experiment—"

"—with the knowledge that any ties to my old life can no longer _be salvaged?"_ I exclaimed, reading the fine print. "What the hell—"

"I'm not done," Mary said, sternly. She sighed. "I'm making you some tea, you could use it—"

"I'm really _not_ in the mood."

"Well, _too bad._" She placed the sizzling beverage before me; I wondered if all of her former clients irritated her this badly, when they came to collect their confessionals. If I had to guess, probably not. "After you sign the full disclosure form, we send you to the confessional room. We ask you to state your name, date of birth, basic stuff like that—then we get to the meat of _why _you're here, and why you chose to do this."

"If it's completely voluntary, then _how _exactly does this help Amity erase problematic people from within the faction?" I asked. "Couldn't they just say no?"

She cleared her throat. "This isn't a common procedure, as you can imagine—the faction leaders must review every subject, and state whether or not they support having their memory erased. And you'd be surprised at how persuasive we can be, if you're being a big enough problem . . ." she trailed off.

"That was the case with Sutter, wasn't it?" I asked. My heart skipped a beat. "My forgotten, mystery ex-boyfriend—he got his memories erased, didn't he?" I asked. My throat felt drier by the minute. "So did the faction 'suggest' it, or was it voluntary?"

"Yes, his memory was erased. And, yes, it was 'kindly suggested' that he go through with the procedure." She looked away, not able to meet my gaze. "He didn't take much persuading."

"What did he do?" I asked, more demanding then I'd meant to. "I mean, what was his crime?"

"I can't disclose that, I'm sorry. Patient confidentiality." She tapped the 'Aimee Finicky' file. "But if you read through your file, I think you can figure it out yourself."

And that's when the thought came to me. I leaned further back in my chair, my blood starting to boil. "Is that why I decided to erase my whole life? Because my ex-boyfriend _erased me?" _

"Tris-"

"No, Mary, I need you to tell me-did I erase my _entire _life because of some problematic boyfriend?"

"You were a very, _very _different person back then, Tris."

"I wasn't a different person, I was the exact _opposite—"_

_ "And that's what you asked for," _she said, sternly.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"When you erase someone's memory, you erase who they are. You can choose personality traits that you want to manipulate, before you go into the procedure. It's an advancement we developed in our serum with the help of some Erudite transfers—the science is really complicated, so I won't go into it. Anyway, in _your_ case, you chose to create a new personality that had more strength, willpower, and bravery."

"Because apparently my old one had _none,_" I muttered.

She rolled her eyes. "_Anyway. _So, back to the procedure: you give your confessional, we give you the serum, and then we give you a drug that knocks you out for about twelve hours—and then we move you. We move you into a new home, in a new a faction, with a new family and new friends. You have your new identity all laid out in front of you, and then all you need is to wakeup."

I shake my head. "That's impossible. I have memories, from when I was little—memories of playing with Caleb. Memories of going to school with Susan. My friends from Abnegation, my parents—they wouldn't have gone along with it. They wouldn't have pretended like I was their daughter, for all of those years."

She cleared her throat. "Abnegation is the selfless faction, Tris. They went along with it, out of concern for your well-being—and as for those childhood memories? That's your brain filling in the gaps. That's your brain compensating for fifteen years of blank space."

I laughed. "That's bullshit."

"No, it's basic human psychology." She leaned forward. "Let me ask you, have you ever had any dreams that seem so vivid, you don't realize you're dreaming until you've woken up? Or when you've woken up, you've wondered if you've just relived a past memory?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so . . ."

"It's the same phenomenon. All of those 'vivid,' childhood memories? Your brain makes them up, the same way it does dream. Amazing what the human brain is capable of, isn't it?"

I stared at her, shaking my head in disbelief. _This is impossible. This is completely, and utterly ridiculous. _Something about the saddened look on her face, and the way she held my file—_Aimee Finicky's file_—in her hands made me want to throw up.

None of this could be true. And I wouldn't believe it until I'd heard it.

"I want to hear my confessional," I demanded.

* * *

_ Rustling papers. Coughing in the background._

It's Wednesday, May 3rd, in the year 2288—please state your name into the microphone, and your reason for being here.

* * *

My name is Aimee Finicky. I'm here to erase my memories. I'm here . . . I'm here specifically because my boyfriend . . . my _ex _boyfriend, Sutter Keely, erased me.

_Voice breaks. Muffled gasping._

* * *

_ Coughs._

Could you describe your relationship with Sutter, Ms. Finicky?

* * *

_Weak laughter._

Life changing, obviously.

_Pause._

We didn't know each other for that long. Well I mean, I've technically known him for years, he's in my grade and we go to the same school—but we were only together for about a year. And we never hung out before we started dating. He's . . . he's not like me. He's funny. Everyone loves him, he's one of the most popular guys in school. So when we got together, well, everyone was kind of shocked.

* * *

_Pause._

Did you love Sutter, Ms. Finicky?

* * *

I did. I really did. He didn't know what he was going to do with his life—he didn't have any plans for his future. And he had a drinking problem, a big one. Oh, and my mom hated him.

_Voice breaks._

But I loved him. I really, really loved him. He was so free, and he made me laugh, and he had the _biggest _heart of everyone that I'd ever met. I gave him _everything_—

* * *

"Stop the tape," I interrupted.

"Tris—"

"Mary, please _stop the tape."_

She did what I said, and I was left with nothing but static on the line. I leaned back into my chair, and gave myself a minute to _think._

"So I was with this kid when I was in, what, eighth grade?" I asked. I tried to put as much venom as I could into my voice, but I just sounded tired.

"From when you were fourteen to when you were fifteen, yes," she said.

_I gave him everything. _If Aimee Finicky was as much of a sap as I thought she was, then I knew what that meant.

"So, not only do I choose to erase my entire life because of some teenage alcoholic, I slept with him when I was, gee, _fourteen?_"

She coughed. "Well, if it makes any difference, you state later in your confessional that you were fifteen when you—"

"Does it _matter?"_

Mary didn't say anything. I ran a hand through my hair, and tried to ignore just how much my head was pounding. So, not only was I once a weak, spineless coward from Amity—I didn't know the boy who'd taken my virginity. _Shit, _I thought, _Tobias._

Tobias.

What in the _world _was I going to tell him? The entire situation I was in was unbelievably ludicrous, even with the pile of proof that I had in front of me. My file, my tape—this wasn't a hoax. This was real, and this was happening. As much as I hated Aimee—the person that I once was—she'd once been _me. _And _I'd_ apparently been devastated enough, after Sutter had erased _me,_ to erase every memory of the first fifteen years of my life—and along with that, my first love, my first _time_, my real parents, and every fiber of my former self.

"I must've really loved him, huh?" I said.

She nodded. "You did."

"Why are you giving me my tape back?" I asked. The question had come to me suddenly, randomly, but now that it was in my head, I couldn't shake it. "Or, actually—what happened to Lacuna?"

"The entire company went under after the faction system fell." She offered me a small smile. "Lacuna's owner recently passed away, and all of the files were passed down—to me, that is." She leaned over, and picked out a thin, brown folder from the box underneath the table. It was labeled 'Shannon Wexley.'

"I used to be a member of Erudite. I went directly to Amity, looking for an out. They didn't typically do procedures outside of Amity, but the company made an exception, just for me . . ." she trailed off. "I found out about two weeks ago. About my old life, I mean. And I don't think that you want to hear some saccharine speech about how wrong it is to tamper with peoples' memories, but frankly, that's how I felt when I found out." She sighed. "So I'm just trying to make right, at least in any way that I can."

I nodded, not able to think of anything to say.

"Do you have any questions, Tris?"

I ran my finger around the rim of the tea cup. The question came out of my mouth before I could think too much about it—or whether or not I actually wanted to know its answer.

"Who is he?" I asked. I leaned forward, and Mary looked down. "He was a patient of yours, wasn't he? That means you know who Sutter Keely is."

She nodded, slowly. "I do."

"Can you tell me what his name is?"

She paused. "I can. And I will, if you want me to. But before I do, I have to warn you—"

"Warn me what?"

"—you're a public figure, Tris, you're pretty easy to keep up with. It's not like I even _meant _to—but with all of the media coverage on you that's happened these last few years, the whole world knows who you are. Everyone knows who's in your inner circle, who was in your initiation class, who your enemies are—"

"What are you trying to say, Mary?"

"You already know Sutter," she told me, quietly. "You've known him for five years."

My heart skipped a beat. "Who is he?" I asked again, trying to keep my voice even.

I braced myself for the bombshell. But even then, it wasn't enough.

"It's Peter, Tris. It's Peter Hayes."

* * *

**A/N: …hohohoho shit.**

**Thank you guys SO much for your reviews to the first chapter, you guys fucking rock. I'll probably post a **_**Distractions **_**update at some point this weekend, so if you're following that fic, be on the lookout for it :D**

**For those of you that haven't seen **_**Spectacular Now **_**and want to get a better idea of what Sutter and Aimee's characters are like, here's a link to a pretty short YouTube vid of them: watch?v=s8Mw0go9Cig**

**xx Nina**


	3. Tobias and Sutter

**Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind**

By Ninazadzia

* * *

"_How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!_

_The world forgetting, by the world forgot._

_Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!_

_Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd"_

**-Alexander Pope**

* * *

The first time Tobias and I slept together, it wasn't sweet, or innocent, or virginal. It was impassioned, and the result of months of pent up sexual tension, and a fierce, fiery love that (as far as we were concerned) was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal. That had been almost four years ago; to say that the fire has since died would be, well, putting it lightly. But truthfully, for the longest time it'd felt like mine and Tobias' lives were intertwined. We were destined to be together, and we were _supposed _to spend the rest of our lives together—we didn't need a ring on our fingers to say as much, but we were the next closest thing to a married couple.

That was how I'd felt, until I'd found my Lacuna file.

After meeting with Mary, I found the local Amity train station and numbly made my way home, back to the apartment I'd shared with _Tobias._ _Tobias,_ the man who had _not _actually deflowered me. _Tobias, _the man who was _not _actually my first love. It all felt like a giant hoax, now that I knew.

But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst part was the fact that _Peter Hayes _(my exhausting, conniving, crude ex-arch-nemesis) was someone who I'd once cared about enough to have my _entire life _erased for.

When I got home, Tobias wasn't there, thankfully. I knew he wouldn't be—he worked during the day. That gave me about five hours to go through my files, listen through the tapes, and figure out my course of action.

Inside my file, I found a myriad of pictures. Pictures of me wearing a yellow dress, sitting on the back of car, and holding a flask as I laughed with _Peter—_excuse me, _Sutter—_on the way to an Amity dance. There were pictures of us with our _friends _(because we'd apparently had a lot, when we lived in Amity), laughing around a table. There was one girl who I always seemed to be around—she looked mousy, in between her short brown and stumpy legs, and she was in every single photo. _I guess that was my best friend, _I thought absently. And in plenty of the photos, Sutter had his arm around me, and I was smiling . . . it was so surreal, looking at the evidence before me. It became clear soon enough that the boy I dated wasn't Peter, not in the slightest. This boy was someone who'd made me laugh, who'd made me feel special, and who'd eventually broken my heart.

And my confessional tape? The chronology of my relationship with Peter—excuse me, _Aimee's _relationship with _Sutter_—was all over the place. I had to listen to the whole _hour long_ confessional three times before I had a grip on _exactly _the sequence of events.

_"Sutter was always kind of a ladies' man. I was delivering newspapers the morning that I'd met him—he was passed out on someone's lawn. I couldn't tell you whose it was, and he couldn't have, either. He'd been drunk, so I was scared that he was dead. It was, gee, six in the morning? I got him to wake up, and he spent the entire morning helping me deliver my newspapers. He'd had a shitty night—he'd been dumped by one of his girlfriends, Cassidy. So, yeah, I worried a little bit at first that maybe I was just a rebound, and that maybe he was just with me because he needed a distraction—but I didn't really care that much. He needed someone to lean on, and I didn't mind him leaning on me._

_ My opinion of Sutter changed, after that first morning. He was a notorious party boy, so I'd always just believed the rumors, and what people had said about him. But once I'd found out just how big of a heart he had . . . well, it was easy to look past his issues. I even reached a point where I didn't really believe that he had any."_

That wasn't the only time I'd been recorded, _on tape, _saying that Peter-Sutter had the _biggest heart _of anyone that I'd ever met. Mary had talked about post-op personality manipulation, yeah, but I couldn't possibly imagine someone like Sutter Keely walking into Lacuna and going, "hmm, yeah, can you make me the _biggest asshole _humanly imaginable?"

After that initial meeting, I'd quickly gone from some rebound to the apple of Sutter's eye. He'd proudly paraded me around, calling me his girlfriend, calling me "beautiful" . . . he even let me help him reach out to his dad, who he'd been estranged from for years. Things got messy after that, though.

_"I think I know why he erased me. Sutter had problems with his dad—he didn't like to talk about it, and I was one of the few people who knew about it. Thing is, his dad left Sutter and his older sister when they were little; he cheated on his wife or something. Couldn't control his drinking, you know? But Sutter didn't know that, he'd always thought that his mom had kicked his dad out of the house, and that he'd spent all of those years not knowing his father because his mom wouldn't let him._

_ He resented his mom, and he was at a point in his life where he felt like he deserved to have a relationship with his dad. So Sutter decided that he wanted to get to know his father, and I helped him with that. We met him, one afternoon. Mr. Keely spent about two hours rubbing elbows with Sutter before getting drunk and going off to screw one of the waitresses—and that got to him. That really, really bugged Sutter. Here was a guy who hadn't seen his son in close to nine years, and he couldn't even spare four hours with him?_

_ Sutter got drunk that afternoon. I tried to tell him that I loved him. He called me all kinds of things—he said that I was stupid, that I didn't know what love was. He didn't mean it, and I knew that, so I didn't get angry—but then he crashed the car. The next thing you know, I'm awake in the hospital. He's telling me that he's going in for some kind of procedure. He tells me that he's sorry, that he loves me, and that he'll see me real soon._

_ I find out three days later that he got his memory erased. He'd told you all to tell me that it would be safer, this way—that he wouldn't be able to hurt me. But he did hurt me. I'm here because I want you to take that pain away."_

Erratic. Spontaneous. Loving. Funny. These weren't words that described Peter Hayes—these were words that described Sutter Keely, at least by the sound of it.

I looked through the file again, and stumbled across one picture of Aimee and Sutter. He was giving me a piggyback ride, and I laughed like I didn't have a care in the world.

_I look so happy, _I thought. I ran my thumb across the image. _He does, too._

We were fourteen, so obviously we looked younger in the photo—Peter must've been a good four or five inches shorter than he is now. In between that, the expressions on our faces, the makeup I'd been allowed to wear (as a member of Amity), and the color of our clothing, the figures in this file are unrecognizable from the people Peter and I have become.

And then the thought crossed my mind, and I couldn't shake it.

There was a part of me—no matter how deep down it was—that _was _Aimee Finicky. There was a part of me that wanted to know her, and wanted to know about her life. And in order for me to know Aimee, it was _essential _that I knew about Sutter

There was a part of me that wanted to know the boy she was so desperately in love with.

So I got up. I took my file, my tapes, my keys, and my coat with me. I left my apartment, sprinted seven blocks, and took the lift up to apartment 7B. Peter's apartment. I gave three very loud, very hard knocks. I waited a minute.

The door swung open, and I was face to face with Peter Hayes.

"Peter—"

I stopped short. He held up a brown file with the label "Sutter Keely" on it.

"I was literally _just _about to call you," he said.

"We have a lot to talk about."

He nodded, and motioned for me to come inside. "You're right. We do."

* * *

**A/N: I PROMISE that we'll get some quality Peter/Tris interaction in the next chapter. Look out for an update sometime in the next few days. As always, thank you guys **_**so **_**much for reading this.**

**I think that I'm going to wrap this fic up in a few chapters, which brings me to a housekeeping question. I have to finish up some hiatus fics (three, to be precise), and that will probably take me a while—so is it worth it for me to add a fourth fic to that lineup? **

**There are some GREAT Petris fics in the Divergent archive, but I have yet to come across a long, slow-burn multi-chap that I like. I've done it before in other fandoms, but never with a pairing that's this obscure—would you guys like to see a long, fleshed-out, epic-love kind of story between Peter and Tris? Let me know.**

**Love you all.**

**xx Nina**


	4. Sutter Keely

**Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind**

By Ninazadzia

* * *

"_How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!_

_The world forgetting, by the world forgot._

_Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!_

_Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd"_

**-Alexander Pope**

* * *

_Papers rustling. Coughing into the microphone._

Please state your name.

* * *

I'm Sutter Keely.

* * *

Please state your reason for undergoing this procedure

* * *

_ Pause._

* * *

Mr. Keely—

* * *

Are you really going to make me say it? Make me talk about all of the gory details?

* * *

Mr. Keely, we need it for our records. And we also need your cooperation.

* * *

_Sigh_. What do you want me to tell you? That I'm here because I almost killed my girlfriend?

_Pause._

That I'm pretty much a failure? Maybe Aimee is the biggest reason why the faction wants me to undergo this procedure, but I've done a _lot_ of other shit.

* * *

_ Throat clearing._

Could you please explain, Sutter?

* * *

I have a drinking problem, and I'm only fifteen. I'm failing out of school. Jesus, I could go on. But I think you get the idea.

* * *

_Quietly. _Why do you have a drinking problem?

_Laughter. _I have the gene, man. My dad's a raging alcoholic. I thought my mom kicked him out of the house because she hated him—turns out that wasn't it. He left because he cheated on her. And then I didn't see or hear from him for seven years, only to find out a few days ago that he left because _he didn't want to be a parent. _He'd rather get drunk and fuck waitresses than watch me grow up and be a responsible adult and shit.

* * *

_Pause._

Sutter—

* * *

Actually, do you _really _want to know why I'm here? It's because I'm becoming him. _And I hate myself for it._ Shit, look at what happened with Aimee, and before her it was Cassidy, and then Jessica, and then Lori—it's always the same thing. They think I'm the shit just because I have a sense of humor. I date them, make them feel like they're a million bucks, and then I hurt them.

_Voice rising._ I don't even mean to do it. It just happens! I was _in love _with Aimee Finicky, and you know what she got out of it? Two sprained ribs and a broken arm. I'm a piece of shit. I don't have my shit together, and it's hurting everyone around me.

_Clears throat. _

So that's why I'm here. I need to get my shit together. And the only way I can do that is if I stop existing.

* * *

Peter cleared his throat. "Alright, I think that's enough of that."

Peter lunged forward and shut the tape off. I kept my gaze trained on the floor as he leaned back. Neither of us said anything for a minute, and a chill set in over the room. We'd listened to my confessional first, and ninety percent of it focused on Sutter. Sutter's confessional was more of a mixed bag; obviously he talked about Aimee, but not as much as he talked about him parents.

The silence was uncomfortable to begin with, but it hung in the room until it was unbearable.

"Well, that definitely wasn't what I imagined," he sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"The tape. It just wasn't what I always thought it would be." He noticed my expression and furrowed his eyebrow. "Weren't you told?"

"Told what?" I asked.

He looked stunned. "That you've had your memory erased. Didn't your foster parents tell you, when you woke up?"

Now it was my turn to be shocked. "No. Today was the first I've ever heard about it."

"Jesus. How's that even possible?"

"I lived in Abnegation. As far as everyone was concerned, I was Andrew Prior's daughter. They went along with it." I shrugged. "My well-being was prioritized over the truth, I guess."

"Right." He groaned. "Abnegation. Well if you'd lived in Candor, they would've slammed you with the truth."

I straightened my back. "So you knew about Sutter?"

He shook his head. "No. I didn't know anything about my old life. My parents told me everything they knew, which wasn't much. The gory details are kept confidential, even to foster parents. But they knew that I'd been part of some memory-erasing project, and that was pretty much the end of it." He laughed. "They were probably wondering why I was such an asshole. Must've wondered how anyone who's gotten their memory erased could fuck up their second chance so badly."

Instead of responding, I simply looked at Peter. He looked tired. Not sleep deprived or anything, just exhausted. I truthfully hadn't seen much of Peter since the end of the war, except when Caleb forced us together in social situations. To say that we were friendly with one another was definitely a stretch, although we always managed to be civil (somehow.) But I'd constantly have to remind myself, _he's in therapy, he's not going to throw you into a chasm, he's harmless now_.

Curt nods and tense "hellos." This was the closest we'd ever come to love.

"I hate this bastard," he said, throwing his file down.

I raised a brow. "Sutter?"

"Yeah. I fucking hate him." He groaned and rubbed his eyeballs. "He had it so good, he just couldn't get his shit together. Really, how hard is it to get over a fucking drinking problem? Having your life erased isn't the only answer."

I pursed my lips. "You're one to talk, considering you almost did the same thing before Four stopped you."

He shot me a glare, but didn't say anything.

I looked at my own file. We were talking about Aimee and Sutter like they were different people. And they were. I saw little of Sutter in Peter, except maybe the emotional instability. And as far as Aimee went, she was my polar opposite. She was weak-willed and meek.

"Well, I hate Aimee," I said.

He snorted. "I don't. She seems a hell of a lot friendlier than you are." He quickly added. "Sorry, that just kind of slipped out."

I rolled my eyes. _Two could play at this game, Peter._ "Well in spite of his issues, at least Sutter wasn't a sociopath."

"I'm not a sociopath anymore."

"But you're still an ass."

He snorted. "I'm an ass who you used to be in love with."

I groaned. _He didn't just go there. _We'd legitimately spent the last two hours going over our confessionals, and _that _was his line of defense?

"You want to find out more about your old life, right?" I shot. He nodded. "Well, I do too. And it doesn't make sense for us to go about it separately."

"Why not?"

I tapped my file. "_Sutter_ is the subject of this entire file. You're the best lead I have. I don't want your help, I need it."

"Okay," he said slowly.

"So if we're going to do this, let's get one thing straight. _I _was not in love with you, _Aimee _was in love with _Sutter._" I waved my file in his face. "We are _not _these people anymore. So don't compare me to her, and don't compare yourself to him."

He picked his file back up. He ran his finger along the edge of it. "Alright," he said, "whatever." He then cleared his throat. "So. Where do we start?"

I thought about it for a second. We'd received everything we knew about Sutter and Aimee from Mary—obviously we should pay her a second visit, but that couldn't be the end of it. Mary oversaw our procedures, but she otherwise didn't really know us.

"Let's see if Mary can give us any leads," I said. "Tell us where we could find our old family and friends. It'd be amazing if we could meet our real parents."

It came out of my mouth before I could realize what I was saying. Sutter and his dad had a horrible relationship; I'd just asked Peter to face his biggest demon.

But he remained expressionless. "Sure," he said. He clapped his hands together. "We should go tomorrow."

I shook my head. "I can't. I promised Tobias I'd—"

I stopped abruptly. Oh, dear God. Tobias.

"Does he know?" Peter asked.

I shook my head. "I haven't seen him since this morning, so no." I checked my watch, and then I looked at my cell phone. My heart plummeted. He'd gotten home from work two hours ago, and had left me two texts and a voicemail. And I hadn't thought of him since walking into Peter's apartment. "Shit," I said, "I should probably get home."

I stood up to leave, but Peter tapped me on the shoulder before I could walk away. I spun around.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"Peter, that's really none of your business."

He snorted. "If we're going to keep this a secret, I need to know. I can't risk slipping up and saying something to Caleb if you don't want me to."

I thought about it for a minute. _Did _I want to keep it a secret? It wasn't like either of us knew what to make of the situation just yet. The entire thing was ludicrous, actually, especially given that Peter and I knew (and deeply disliked) each other. So, no, I wasn't exactly in the mood to explain it to all of my loved ones, over and over again. And I also wasn't in the mood to tell my boyfriend that he wasn't _really _my one and only, since I'd apparently already slept with someone else.

That'd become Tobias' thing. To him, I was "the one." Our lives were intertwined. We could live together and trust each other completely, because we knew that it was just the two of us against the world, and that no one else had ever been in the picture.

Except now, there was. Even though it was in a past life and I was a completely different person, at some point I'd been someone else's "one." And I didn't know how he'd take that.

"Eventually we'll have to tell people," I managed. "But not right now. Let's get our shit together first."

He nodded. "Right."

So there we were, just kind of standing in his doorframe and looking at each other. _What a crazy situation we've gotten ourselves in_. Whoever would've guessed that we'd once been star-crossed lovers. It made my stomach churn.

I cleared my throat. "We should go on Saturday. I'll take a day off and tell Tobias I'm working."

"Fine by me." He removed his hand from my shoulder. "So, Saturday?"

I nodded. "Saturday."

* * *

**A/N: So sorry for the delay with this! I sincerely hope that our first substantial Peter/Tris interaction was worth the wait—let me know what you guys think :D**

**xx Nina**


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